The Best Day Ever At The Western (Whitten) Oval! Roachie Bags 11
The best day ever at the Western (Whitten) oval! Roachie bags 11
With the imminent return of the Tigers back to The Whitten Oval next Saturday I thought I would share one of my greatest days as a Tiger supporter travelling out west. It all began on a still grey day and it’s Saturday the 10th of May 1980 and I am off to see the Mighty Tigers take on Dirty Rotten Footscray in our round 7 clash at the Western oval at the traditional 2:10 PM starting time and 16,471 other fans will be joining me.
I am nineteen and added to the excitement of the day is the fact that one Royce Desmond Hart is coaching against his beloved tigers for the first time. Here is how that truly tigeriffic day panned out.
Getting to the Western Oval had always been a big test for many a footy fan attending an away game especially one like me who lived in Dandenong at the time. It was an hour long train ride into Flinders Street and out again on the St Albans line, with the careful advice ringing in my ears about not getting off at Footscray Station, but waiting until the train reached West Footscray. It’s pretty obvious once I get there. The station is right next to the ground. I always found the old Western Oval a strange place to visit, even when Richmond ruled the footy jungle. For some reason the wind would howl straight down the centre rendering one end impossible to score from. If you had the wind advantage the Dirty Rotten ‘Scrays had the knack of luring better credentialed visitors into dead pockets where play would become bogged down in the mud. The Tigers won premierships in ’67, ’69, ’73 and ’74 but suffered upset losses to Dirty Rotten Footscray out there in three of those years. The E.J Whitten Stand rocked as Footscray fought and scrapped their way to unlikely wins.
Now for those that never had the pleasure (LOL!) of attending a Dirty Rotten Footscray home game at the Western Oval they would be unfamiliar with the unique nuances of the ground. The eastern side of the ground contained the two major grandstands, named after John Gent and of course the legendary EJ Whitten, while both ends behind the goals were purely what can only be described as the ‘outer’, with often savage winds blowing from the northern Barkly Street end to the southern Geelong Road end or vice-versa. As a contrast, the western side bordering Gordon Street contained a roofed outer with an elevated coaches box above what came to be known unofficially at first and later officially as the Doug Hawkins Wing, named after the 329 game Bulldogs veteran. Everyone loves Dougie and for those that never saw the Great EJ Whitten play he was as close to the Dirty Rotten doggie spirit as you could get and he transcended club loyalty and it’s a shame he is not playing today but I digress
The Western Oval, long, narrow, windswept and utterly bereft of even the thread of glamour brought by the recent statue of Ted Whitten and the renaming of the ground in his honour, had a reputation for bringing good sides undone. On this day I was not taking anything for granted in regards to winning as I knew better, the tigers (as to this very day) could drag the proverbial mat from underneath your feet in a heartbeat! In 1980 we were a really good side and Dirty Rotten Footscray weren’t but yet I was still anxious and at the same time excited as the tigers had a star studded line up and The Dirty Rotten ‘Scray’s didn’t. As I take my place behind the goals at the Barkly St end, the Richmond larrikins are in full voice. Mark Jackson, all jutting jaw and bleach-blond hair, is giving his Footscray reserves opponents a touch-up and the fans are loving it. Yes – that indi-bloody-vidual Mark Jackson! Melbourne, Geelong and St Kilda fans might claim greater ownership rights over Jacko’s antics, but he first became a cult hero at Tigerland and I reckon this was the day it began. The crowd is sparse and the players are at close range and, knowing Jacko’s predilections, you can imagine it was a pretty interactive barracking session. No need for pre-match announcers urging us to “make some noise” in those days! Jacko couldn’t have chosen a worse year to make his mark in the Richmond reserves. Despite kicking over 130 goals, he couldn’t get a sniff of senior action with Michael Roach bagging 112 goals for the season. As if that wasn’t enough, another handy young forward by the name of Brian Taylor was also doing the hard yards in the twos, cracking just one senior game in 1980. And in the Under 19s, a kid called Peter Lane booted 110 in the Tiger Cubs’ Premiership season. Unfortunately, Richmond didn’t capitalise on this surfeit of riches. Jacko was out the door to Melbourne at the end of the year. Lane never made it into senior ranks. Taylor took over full forward in 1982 and was on target for a century of goals until a mid-season knee injury sidelined him for six weeks. Although he was fit again by season’s end, Taylor wasn’t selected in our Grand Final team that year. Despite this disappointment, he stuck around for a few more years before moving to Collingwood where he fulfilled his potential with a 100-goal season in 1986. Attempts to make a two-pronged attack of Roach and Taylor never really worked and neither player was versatile enough to hold down a position further up the ground.
The reserves have finished and just before the main game starts I move to the Doug Hawkins Wing under the roof of the old stand with all the other visiting fans. Tony Jewell was compelled by the faithful to give us a wave as he ascended the ladder to the coaches box; he didn’t and I disliked him from that moment on. Stealing a line from Bob Hawke, A drovers dog could have coached the tigers to flag that year but I never warmed to Jewell and still haven’t! Only a Tiger supporter could have enjoyed the main event. For all their home ground advantage, Dirty Rotten Footscray’s a rabble today. By the last quarter, interest centres on how many goals Michael Roach will kick. Kicking to our end and playing on a youthful Neil Cordy, Roach bags five for the term to finish with a career-high 11 for the game. As the game ends in semi-darkness, excited chatter breaks through the Richmond ranks. Carlton, beaten last week for the first time, has lost again today. Two points down to Hawthorn at three-quarter time, the Blues kicked one goal and 14 behinds in the last quarter to the Hawks 3.2, to lose by that same two point margin. We’re top of the ladder and on the way to our first flag since 1974! Every Richmond player achieved double figure possession tallies today, except for our interchange players, Paul Sarah and Greg Strachan, and even then, Sarah bagged two goals from his only two kicks.
In an otherwise remarkably even team performance, Lee’s 49 hit outs was a ridiculously dominant performance; Robert Wiley had his hands on everything with 27 possessions; K.B had his usual effective day at the office booting 4; Merv Keane charged off the backline all afternoon; Cloke was magnificent and provided the perfect foil for Roach; Pretty Boy Raines did what he always did and looked elegant and had the ball on a string all afternoon and Jim Jess smashed Kelvin Templeton and held him to just two goals for the day but Roachie with his 16 marks and 11 goals 2 behinds was simply sublime all afternoon! This was a personal best for Roach, which he equalled five years later against Hawthorn in a remarkable match that the Tigers won, 29 goals to 21. Slim pickings for the hapless Bulldogs with our back line of Emmet Dunne, Mick Malthouse and Jim Jess standing tall all day and notable names in the Dogs’ lineup this day included Jim Edmond, Robert Groenewegen, Terry Wheeler and Ted Whitten Jnr. The Wrap Footscray 1.2 3.6 6.7 10.10 (70) Richmond 3.1 9.10 17.12 27.18 (180) Goals Foots: Morrison 3, Seery, Templeton 2, Atkinson, Davidson, Whitten Rich: Roach 11, Bartlett 4, Monteath, Raines Sarah, Weightman, Wiley 2, Cloke, Keane
